Is anyone considering “leaving” their family during law school?

allyreese

Is anyone considering “leaving” their family during law school? The school I hope to attend is 1.5 hours away. My wife has a great job (although it is still going to be difficult without my pay to make ends meet). We have discussed commuting, dorms, apartments...etc.

We have also discussed her trying to get a new job in the new location but we both agree…that is highly unlikely (we would be coming from a major metropolitan city to a very small college town).

Is any one else considering this type of transition?

me and hub have also been toying with this idea... the option on the table would be a STL - Chicago split, so we could defnitely commute on weekends, i certainly don't anticipate being much fun on weekdays anyway... but in the end, i think the challenge of maintaining separate households would be pretty rough...

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rontrose

I'm going to drive an hour and fifteen minutes each way for the first year. We'll probably all move for the last two years. I think this will work for us because it'll be easier to have the bad drive than to start law school, have my wife start a new job, and have our baby in day care for the first time. It'll be hard for me, but much easier on them.

check01

I'm condisering this due to a long real estate story. The short version is that we need to move back into a certain property (condo) and remain there for a year. The commute is about an hour each way which isn't horrible but the idea of having two hours every day when I couldn't study makes me uneasy, thus Hubby and I are talking about me renting a studio near school while he and Stepson live in the condo. This would be for just the first year - by 2L I'm hoping that (1) I'll be able to study more efficiently; and (2) we can sell the condo without paying massive capital gains tax and buy something closer to school.

I presume you're talking about the IRS rule that you pay no capital gains if you've lived in the property for 2 of teh last 5 years. I know someone who got around that by renting his house to a friend for a year -- the guy moved across the country but kept his rented house as his "official" residence. He's a lawyer, but he's also a complete d*ckhole, so follow his example at your peril.

Now hubby prospect is saying he doesn't want to move away from home. He's 28 and already at the top of the food chain for his job. So it looks like there are 2 schools that would work for me, one of which is a HUGE reach.

I am a single parent of a eight year old and have decided- after much debate on my part to take him with me- to let him stay with my parents during the first year of law school.

I know the first year takes A LOT of time outside of the classroom and I don't want to have him with me only to have him spend the whole day watching me study. He is very active in sports and the church in our home town and he has begged me to let him stay with my parents (who are happy to have him). My goal is to come home on the weekends and the many breaks throughout the year- school is two hours away.

I know it will be hard because I am used to being with him and doing so much with him but he is at the age where he understands and I know that moving him would cause him more harm than good especially since third grade is when major testing takes place.

My wife and I lived apart for all three school years. (No kids, which made it a lot easier, of course.) She had a good job near Philly, and while I seriously considered Penn, in the end we decided it would be worth the sacrifice for me to go to HLS.

It's definitely do-able, at least if you don't have kids. The longest stretch we were apart was 7 weeks(!), right at the start of 1L year. After that, I started flying home roughly every other weekend. During the summers, I worked at a firm near our home. Fortunately, between my wife's job and my summer work, we could afford having the separate (dumpy) apartment and the travel back and forth. (One of my classmates wasn't so lucky -- she used to travel from HLS to Baltimore frequently to see her boyfriend, by Peter Pan bus.)

The toughest thing for me was not the loneliness but the temptation. A few of my non-trad classmates got divorced during LS. I made a promise to myself that my marriage would not become a statistic, and I managed to barely muddle through without doing anything I overly regret.

My husband is in grad school in Long Beach, CA. I am considering going to Texas. He only has one year left and could join me afterwards. I am still hoping UCLA or USC will save me from this though. When we discuss it, everything seems workable (on a logical level), but I know it would take an emotional toll. I am worried this emotional toll would have a negative impact on my performance. It is a difficult decision.

Good luck with your decision. Luckily, I don't have any children...yet!